Wilson Watt 3/Puppy 2 Loudspeaker

Wilson claims to stock replacement drivers for all their products, new and old. No clue what they would cost.  

Ditto on the amplifier comment. Need something that swings some juice. If you are going to refresh the old watt/puppies and need a corresponding price point amp, look at new or used amps by Odyssey. While solid state, they tend to be biased for a more tubelike presentation that should mate well with those tweeters, especially if you replace them. 

I am driving a pair of (admittedly much newer) Wilson’s out of their watt/puppy lineage using Odyssey monoblocks. The result is so good I have so far resisted the temptation to spend huge money on replacement amps. 
 

@yoyoyaya As you may know, the efficiency was used to be measured based off a single tone at 1khz via industrial standard. Multi-tone test based efficiency was available through individual sources though. You are right, even looking at the raw impedance chart, the impedance drops down to 1.75 ohm at approximately 2.5khz. JA also commented:

"While this will not present pedigree solid-state amplifiers with any drive problems, tube designs are best avoided given the overall low impedance above 150Hz."

@dishman442 Thank you for the Odyssey mono recommendation. I will look into it.

Older woofers can be retaped. A friend of mine bought a set of puppies that had just been retaped… they sound great. Not expensive to have done at all.

dishman442

Wilson sadly does not stock all legacy drivers. My Cubs had Focal tweeters (inverted dome) which suffered surround rot. I could not get replacements from Wilson or Focal.

I’m going to give a different spin of an answer.

I will harmonize with @deep_333 that this is not a good loudspeaker by today’s standards.  There are many modern speakers at this price point that will sound better.  It is a product of the time when time alignment using a sloped cabinet was a fad.  Designers had to make serious design compromises to make these designs work.  The measurements suggest this speaker is room and placement sensitive.

Reasons to consider it?  (Provided the drivers are in good shape)

1.  You want to own a piece of audio history.  It’s a definite conversation piece.

2.  You primarily listen to rock or metal, or otherwise like an exaggerated bass punch.  (The bump in bass output centered around 100 Hz is a known to be perceived as bass punch.)